Article:Steroids the Controversy

The Question that seems to be asked today is should the record book be rewritten to account for the use of illegal substances. Barry Bonds breaking the all time home-run record. Should his name have an asterisk by it? Along with this and other questions, there are more than this that are barely on the topic of debate as is the suspension time-wise enough for the crime that they did.

My thought is why in the first place would you use steroids? Ok, steroids gives that boost of muscle mass that you need to help you. But there are problems of using them consisting of acne on your back, atrophy of the testicles, mood swings, and even rage. In retrospect, did past professionals use it? Some might have but you don’t hear too much about. Past professionals played the game the way it was intended to be played, without acne-infested backs and huge muscles. Or it just might be the fact that illegal substances were not as big as they are now.

The semi-notorious mark that always comes to mind when some one did something bad in the world of sports is? If you guessed the asterisk, you are correct. To me the asterisk is not as big as people say it is. It is just a symbol saying that you did something that was not right while you broke the record. For example, when Roger Maris broke Babe Ruth’s single season home run record of 60. Commissioner Ford Frick ordered for the asterisk to be placed next to Maris’ name. Why did he do this? Because Roger played eight more games than Ruth. But put this into consideration Roger did not break the record until the last game of the season.

But now that the Mitchell Report is out it seems that you are finding players that you never thought to do steroids and HGH. You have stars like Roger Clemens, Andy Pettitte, Miguel Tejada, Eric Gagne, Troy Glaus, Gary Sheffield, and Gary Matthews, Jr. Those are just some of the big names that are playing as of now. What do you think their penalties should be for using, holding, or for distributing steroids and HGH? I heard this one comment on ESPN, “That if players are on found using performance enhancing drugs that they should just be banned from the league.” In my thoughts that is just not right, look at the world as of now, people are getting second and third chances to make up for their mistakes that they made in the past and even now.

Well I believe at Roger Clemens, case Bud Selig had his own case infront of the government along with the rest of the commissioners of professional sports leagues. Commissioner Selig said that he is working on trying to clean up the game of baseball. Well, when he became open commissioner of the league in 1992, he knew about the use of steroids but could not take aggressive actions to stop it. We can also the fact that he had to worry more about how the commissioner before him, Fay Vincent, let so many things drop into his lap. But on that this the illegal use of performance enhancing substances reached its way into court, thanks to Clemens and Bonds, let's see what the government can do to stop it. Right now Selig has this on his plate, along with other things in Major League Baseball.

The only thing that comes to my mind is what is Selig going to do next? Like he already had the Mitchell Report to look at, but all that is going to do is give me past and current players to look at. But what is going to happen to the players of the future. Lets just say five years from now, is Selig going to have a policy that is at all worth looking at? Or is it just going to be how it is right now, Shit.

Then again if you think about should steroids really be banned? Take in the fact that Bonds and Clemens really did do steroids (not saying that they did). But how much publicity did Bonds get for breaking the all-time home run record? He had fans following him around from ballpark to ballpark waiting for him to break the record. Just think about how much money the ballparks raked in from that? Or when Clemens was going for his 300 th win, just think about all that happened during that time.

If steroids had to be used at all now-a-days, I think the low end crappy players, should get to use them. For instance let's use former Atlanta Braves catcher Jazy Lopez. Lopez used to be at the top of his game when he first entered the league. But now where is he, like he is alright to use steroids in my book just to get that fair advantage back again.

But on the other side of the coin, you do not want a game with a bunch of men hyped up on Roid-Rage. Just look at what happened to John Rocker, after that we found that he was linked to steroids way before the Mitchell Report. Basically if you watched the news at all back a couple of years ago, when he had bursts of Roid-Rage on and off the field. The Atlanta Braves kicked him out of their organization.

So if I were the commissioner, I would let steroids be legal to players who are on the low end of the pay roll who are not star players. Given the fact that performance enhancing substances are bad for you, it would be kinda cool to see a ball game where about every player is on an even level with the star players. The fact seeing a whole season of baseball, where all the teams are dead even and fighting for the chance to play in October.

To me, a good baseball season is one where you hear all the stats and they are only separated by one or two. But I’m just waiting to see how this year is going to be played out. With the Mitchell Report out, the players are being named left and right, and we will see how is the game play will be affected should these players be gone for that time.